"It’s a nice little place they’ve bought," Sam informed her, between bites of cold ham and potato. "Dennis travels down and up every day, which is, what you might call a stunt, but he has the satisfaction of knowing the roof over his head is his own." Martha set an ice-cold cup-custard at Sam’s plate. "From Yonkers to the Battery _is_ a kind o’ long stretch, but—where there’s a will there’s a—sub-way, I s’pose. Would he be with the same steamship company he was with, since I first knew’m, I wonder?" "Yes, and they gave him a raise last month. He’s doing _all right_, Dennis is. You ought to see the way Sarah’s got the house fixed. They pay off for the new furniture every month, so they don’t feel it, Sarah says." "Well, Sarah mayn’t feel it, but you can take it from me, _I_ certaintly would, in her place," Martha observed. "Gettin’ things on the excitement plan, would wrack my health. I hate the thought o’ owin’. Payin’ for a dead horse never did _appeal_ to me, as Mrs. Sherman says. How’s Andy doin’?" "Andy _was_ succeeding great, but something went wrong, somehow, all of a sudden, and his scheme fell through. He explained it to me, but I forgot the particulars, to tell the truth. He’ll be on his feet again in no time. Andy always was the smart one of the family." Martha ruminated. "Wouldn’t you wonder how anythin’ gets done in this world, when nothin’ anybody ever tries seems to succeed? Is Nora as gallus-lookin’ as ever? Or is she holdin’ in her horses some, now her husban’s kind o’ down an’ out, for the time bein’?" "Nora’s just the same, as far as I can see. _Our_ Nora says Nora-Andy is distroying Andy with her extravagance. She says the way she dresses, alone, it’s no wonder he is always in and out of some get-rich-quick scheme, that’ll land him in the poor-house, or worse, if he don’t look out. But then, our Nora never did have the appearance of Nora-Andy, I must say that, if I am her own brother. Our Nora is kind of sharp, and she looks it." "Well, I guess marriage’ll bevel some of the edges off’n her, all right, all right," said Martha. "Were you surprised when you heard she was keepin’ company with McKenna?" "Yes, I was. I never thought Nora’d marry now—at her age." "Nora always wanted to marry, an’ when she saw her chance she grabbed it by both horns." Sam’s serious expression relaxed a little. "That sounds as if McKenna was the devil and all of a fellow. He’s not that at all, and he certainly ain’t much to look at." "Oh, well," Martha responded, "nobody but her’ll have a call to look at’m much, oncet he’s married." "I told her I thought she was taking a risk, throwing up a good place she’d been in, for so many years, parlor-maid, to live out general-housework with a stranger," said Sam. "I thought that was a joke. But it made her mad. She said, ’God knows it’s no joke!’ She said she had as much of a right to live her life as I have, which of course it’s true. She said ’every dog has its day!’"